“There’s still another problem, though.”
Finally,finallyJordy met his eyes.
Rowan swallowed against the snakes squirming in his stomach and forced himself to open his mouth. “We can’t do this anymore. You know that, right?” He gestured between them.
Jordy pressed his lips together. “This being….”
Rowan shouldn’t be mad at Jordy for making him say it. Clearer communication would have prevented this mess in the first place. He couldn’t blame Jordy for wanting clarity now. “This—sleeping together, playing house, all of it. It’s too… much.” Rowanwantedtoo much, and he wouldn’t be able to have it. He needed to start weaning himself off the placebo. “I need to take a step back from—us. It’s not fair to you, or me, orKaira, for that matter, if I’m….”
Fuck, the whole point was clear communication, and he couldn’t even finish a sentence. “If you were staying, it could maybe be different. But you’re not, and acting like we can just keep doing this indefinitely without anyone getting hurt isn’t doing us any favors. I don’t want to confuse Kaira… or you.”
A pathetic, desperate part of him wanted Jordy to argue. He wanted Jordy to convince him they could have it all. He wantedto matter enough for Jordy to fight for him, to tell him they could make it work against whatever odds. That they could have something real.
Jordy only nodded, head bowed. “No, yeah… I get it. I’m sorry.”
Rowan swallowed his disappointment. “Me too. Uh.” He took another deep breath for fortification. “I’m going to start looking for apartments, like, seriously. You’re going to need to pick a permanent nanny before that, or, I don’t know, you’re going to need the temps overnight or something.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jordy promised.
“Okay.” And now Rowan needed to get the hell out of here. “Uh, I’m just gonna… I have to go pack my work bag for tomorrow.”
He made his escape.
His eyes were stinging by the time the bedroom door closed behind him, but Rowan kept a stiff upper lip. This was always going to end. He knew what he signed up for, and he didn’t have anyone but himself to blame.
It still sucked.
He let himself wallow for a few minutes and then wandered into his en suite. If he only had a few more weeks left with the oversize tub in his bathroom, he was going to make the most of them.
JORDY HADbeen traded before. This was different.
He hadn’t had a kid the last time, for one thing. For another, he hadn’t seen it coming; one minute he played in Nashville and the next he was putting on a blue-and-yellow jersey. He hadn’t had time to say goodbye to the team, but he hadn’t had to deal with drawn-out uncertainty either.
He decided he liked the first trade better.
But if he squinted, he could find the barest hints of a silver lining—at least Sully thought Jordy was being a sad sack about getting traded and not about the way things had fallen apart with Rowan.
“This is depressing,” Sully told him as they lined up for the anthem. “It’s not like you were Mr. Sunshine before, but now it’s like someone kicked your puppy.”
“I don’t have a puppy,” Jordy reminded him.
“Took candy from your daughter, then.”
Jordy’s lips twitched. At least he could still count on Sully’s ridiculousness to cheer him up. “I’m the only one brave enough to take candy from my daughter.” Which reminded him he needed to hide the Halloween candy, or the nannies might actually have totryto take candy away from Kaira, and that would end in headaches for everyone.
“Maybe put some of that bravery into being less of a sad sack,” Sully advised.
Then the organ drowned him out.
Jordy put his feelings into checking instead. He racked up a new personal best for hits during the game and notched two takeaways. Let management stew on that. If they didn’t keep him, they’d have to play against him.
To punctuate his point, he put a blistering slap shot in the back of the net in the dying minutes of the third to put the Shield up 3–1.
“I take it back,” Sully said, slapping Jordy’s helmet in congratulations. “Grumpy Jordy can stay as long as he’s going to play like this.”
Jordy face-washed him.
After the game, he did his cool-down workout, gave his obligatory “defenseman scores a goal” interview, and showered off three hours’ worth of grime as he debated his next move.
